Rockford bicyclists ride to work for exercise and to save gas

ROCKFORD — As a kid, Amanda Pronko rode her bike all the time. It was a blue Huffy with a banana seat and streamers that stuck out of the handlebars.

Four years ago, Pronko, 36, bought her first bike as an adult, a secondhand mountain bike for $150. For the past three years, whenever the weather is decent, she’s used it to ride the scenic 7.25-mile route from her Machesney Park home to her job at Metropolitan Title Agency in Rockford. Her ride home is more straightforward at 5.8 miles.

Pronko is one of few Rockfordians who bike to and from work — 0.5 percent of the 60,733 workers 16 years old and older in Rockford bike to work according to a U.S. Census Bureau report released May 12, the first day of Bike to Work week.

Yet with May being National Bike Month — sponsored by the League of American Bicyclists — advocates are continuing to promote riding bikes to work and elsewhere.

“I have been blowing up my Facebook and Instagram with bike-to-work info, trying to encourage others to give it a try,” Pronko said.

She said she likes riding her bike to work because it relieves stress, helps with weight control, and saves gas money and wear-and-tear on her car.

She and her husband, Jason Pronko, also ride bikes on local recreation paths and to Rockford City Market on most Fridays.

Sue Cichock of Rockford is riding her bike to work more often. She is a human resources representative for the Rockford Park District, which on May 1 started a Just Bike program. Some 16 employees out of the park district’s 170 employees have expressed interest in biking to work, Cichock said. Employees who meet certain milestones riding to work will be rewarded, most likely with merchandise such as biking gear, she said.

Cichock, who lives about a mile from her downtown Rockford office, said she likes to bike for the exercise and to help the environment. Plus, three of the children she and her husband, Jim Cichock, have will be driving to summer jobs this year.